


To Have a Home

by bazemayonnaise (Ninjaninaiii)



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Times, Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Charon and Zero fight over who can be the most polite, Depression mention, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Canon, bed sharing, drug mention, honorific-kink, john wick parabellum spoilers, they adopt a dog, zero and charon's love of john wick unites them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 01:57:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18907171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninjaninaiii/pseuds/bazemayonnaise
Summary: Zero doesn’t think he can keep his eyes open much longer, his tongue heavy and the resound ringing in his head a sure sign he’s running far too low on blood. It’s getting hard to think with the steady thump, so he lets his gut choose for him.Concierge, friend of John Wick, Zero’s gut tells him. Concierge can be trusted.Zero snorts a small laugh, fascinated by where this day has gone, then relaxes his grip on the sword, his right thumb and forefinger touching in a brief ‘okay’.Or, 5 times Zero doesn't adopt a dog and 1 time he does.





	To Have a Home

“Good Evening, Sir.”

Zero smudges his right hand against the floor in a limp wave, his left coming to grip the hilt of the sword currently impaling him. 

The voice is familiar — it’s the Concierge, walking towards him across the glass floor. Everything about him: his walk, his breathing, his voice is steady and calm, completely unphased after the battle, but if Zero concentrates, he can hear the slight edge, a twang, a bruised rib, potentially a bullet to the side. Nothing lethal, possibly not even needing stitches, but a weak point all the same. One particularly pointed kick and-

“If you will please release your grip on the sword,” the Concierge says, pinching at the fabric at the top of his trousers before he squats beside Zero, “I would recommend neither pulling it out of your chest nor putting it through mine.”

Zero doesn’t think he can keep his eyes open much longer, his tongue heavy and the resound ringing in his head a sure sign he’s running far too low on blood. It’s getting hard to think with the steady thump, so he lets his gut choose for him.

_ Concierge, friend of John Wick,  _ Zero’s gut tells him.  _ Concierge can be trusted.  _

Zero snorts a small laugh, fascinated by where this day has gone, then relaxes his grip on the sword, his right thumb and forefinger touching in a brief ‘okay’. 

The Concierge doesn’t waste a second, carefully locking his arms under Zero’s body and lifting him up, angling Zero’s body to avoid the sword jutting out of him. 

“Comfortable?” the Concierge asks, and Zero laughs again at the wry voice, his grin splitting his face widely until he allows himself to fall unconscious. 

-

Zero wakes a moment later with a dull throb at the back of his skull. He thinks he can feel the glass floor pressed against his face so he reaches a hand up to his cheek, but it takes more than a second for him to register that he’s actually laying on his back, in a bed. His body is so full of something powerful that he overshoots and smacks his loosely-curled fist into his own face, which he registers with little more than a numb  _ thump _ .

The movement is tight, his torso feeling, well, like nothing at all, and for a moment he thinks that he maybe doesn’t have a body at all anymore, that he’s dead and that his soul is trapped in a corpse, ready for disposal. But if he was dead, he would be on a cold metal trolley, either in a freezing morgue or beside the roaring  _ Continental _ cremation furnaces.

This bed is certainly not his own — he’s not a poor man, but he has never owned down pillows and soft bed sheets. 

His thoughts, which usually come a mile a minute, have slowed to a curious chug that he’s unused to, trying to plot out what exactly he remembers.  _ Fugu. Adjudicator. John Wick. John Wick! He had fought John Wick!  _

Zero carefully trails his hand to his chest, not wanting to accidentally punch his own sword-wound. His fingers find soft, dry bandages, wrapped professionally around his chest. There are a couple of other squares of cotton taped over the other, lighter wounds dotted around his chest. He lets his hand fall to his side, the simple effort of keeping the arm up exhausting. 

_ Whose bed is this _ ? It’s not his own, it’s not one of the  _ Continental’s _ — neither a private room nor the doctor’s — he’s more than familiar with waking up in those starched sheets. 

For a brief second he thinks  _ John Wick’s bedroom?,  _ his heart thrilling at the idea, before  _ no, Concierge  _ flashes through his mind. Right, yes. The Concierge will not have wanted Zero held up in the  _ Continental,  _ not with whatever circumstances have happened after their fight. 

_ Why help me then _ ? So that they can extract information about the cool Adjudicator, or about the High Table? So that they can hold the favour over Zero, turning his fealty away from those who would hurt John Wick? 

But his hands are unshackled and the bed is very soft. He breathes calmly for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of where he is being kept. A bedroom in an old-sounding house. Wood, solid walls, no neighbours to the sides of the room, no sign of inhabitation upstairs. Not an apartment, then. The quiet hum of traffic outside, so still within the city, not in the suburbs or worse, the countryside. 

Possibly one of those older, fancier houses truly rich New Yorkers live in. He’s alone in the room, no guards at the doors, and there is no hum of electricity where he might expect a security camera to be placed. Obviously he cannot hear smaller bugs or surveillance, but somehow he doubts it. 

He squeezes his still-closed eyes, tensing every muscle in his body… then lets everything relax. There is nobody hiding in the room watching for him to move. He doesn’t feel like he’s in danger. 

Zero takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it go. Zero’s worked 7AM to midnight days at his restaurant for a decade. This might be the first time in as many years he’s had a lie-in. He repeats the breathing exercise a couple more times, then snuggles into the bed he’s been granted. Why look a gift horse in the mouth?

-

The next time he wakes up, there are a lot less drugs in his system and he is in a lot of pain. It feels like his entire chest is burning; like if he twitches he might throw up; like he can feel every grain of ever muscle that’s been cleaved through. 

He finds himself laughing again, which is a mistake because it hurts a hundred times more when his muscles are contracting and his nerves are firing like a needle gun directly into his chest, but! But he was impaled by  _ the John Wick!  _

It’s so overwhelming, he faints.

-

Zero is not called Zero before he moves to New York. At sixteen he is a boy from a town just south of Tokyo, half-way to Yokohama. His father owns a sushi restaurant, his mother is the lead hostess, and he has waited tables since he was old enough to walk. 

It is summer break and his father has finally, finally allowed him into the kitchen to wash up as a reward for getting good grades on his mock examinations. Through the summer term at school he will work in the kitchen every morning and evening, before and after his club practice. It leaves very little time for sleep, but Zero is determined to succeed: he will get good grades, he will play baseball, he will own his father’s sushi shop. 

His friends laugh at him for that. ‘Why bother getting good grades if you’re just going to take over the family business?’ they ask, ‘Why bother helping in the kitchen if you know you’ll be doing it for the rest of your life?’ 

Zero knows they care about him, care that he only plays as much baseball as he can without risking injuring his hands and arms, care enough to be selfish with him, care enough to tell him that if he doesn’t play with them after school instead of washing dishes they’ll make him do their homework, but he never listens to them, and they never follow up on the empty threat. 

They grab cartons of flavoured milk on their way home, laugh and push each-other as they amble through the quiet streets, and Zero will sometimes, sometimes be convinced to stuff a convenience-store cake or sweet bun into his mouth even though he knows his parents would murder him if they ever found out. 

It’s summer, and he is living the perfect life: satisfied, sated, successful. 

His friends part-ways with him about ten minutes from his home, the three of them heading off towards their homes in the residential district while he heads towards the high-street where his family’s home-come-shop is. It’s in a prime location, near a lot of higher-end boutiques and cheaper stores; attracting both the rich and the poor. The shop is a local favourite, his father making daily custom plates of sashimi, his mother able to toe the line between cheap-and-profitable. 

They both work incredibly hard, and Zero will always strive to be like them. 

Zero’s favourite shop on his way home is the pet shop. The walk home is really only a couple of metres, but Zero knows he will take ten minutes to watch the puppies and kittens in the window, breath fogging the glass as he crouches, giddy smile on his face. 

His parents have promised that if he’s able to keep his grades at the top of his class and he works at the shop every day for the entirety of summer, they will allow him to buy a puppy. 

“You must know responsibility, Zero,” they tell him when he asks, their faces their usual stoic. “You must do this for us and we will do this for you. It is the equivalence of relationships, do you understand?” 

Zero had understood, had nodded eagerly, thanking his parents profoundly for the opportunity. 

He still had a month left and the pet shop could not reserve him a dog, but still Zero will stop and analyse each puppy in the window. Which would his parents like? Which would like to play catch with him in the park? Which would be his partner for the rest of their lives? 

After a few moments of considering questions, his brain would cloud over with ‘ _ ah but she’s so cute playing with that toy!’  _ and he’d gush to his heart’s content. It would be so hard to pick! One more month! What was he going to do! 

With a contented sigh, he peels himself away from the window. Dishes wouldn’t wash themselves-

Zero registers the sound of shattering glass before he realises he’s on the ground, skin burning, ears ringing, body shuddering. 

He gets told later by a policeman that it was an accident in the kitchen, that his parents had both been inside the restaurant when it had happened. He gets told later by a man dressed all in black that his parents were part of gang, that the explosion was an assassination. That they were not just part of the gang, that they led it. That people would come after him should they find him still alive. 

The man in black takes him in an all-black car, says “call me Uncle”, and brings Zero to New York. Uncle changes Zero’s name to Zero, tells him he is eighteen now, that he is to work in a kitchen while they protect him. 

Zero nods, begins washing dishes in a restaurant almost exactly like his father’s but across the other side of the world. He picks up English very quickly; he always was good at studying, and he learns how to use a knife, then learns how to use it to slice fish. 

For a long, long time Zero doesn’t know how to mourn for his parents, for the people who had raised him while pretending to be people they weren’t, so he mourns for the little puppies in the window that he will never own. 

-

Eventually Zero wakes up and doesn’t feel like sneezing would kill him. He does a check of his surroundings again, registers that he is alone, then pushes himself up into a sitting position. Uncomfortable, painful even, but he isn’t keeling over and dying. 

The room is exactly how he’d pictured it in his mind’s eye —  _ old white man’s house, like the ones in the films _ . Wooden, uncomfortable-looking furniture, pristine white walls with dustless skirting boards, polished brass doorknobs. There are touches of modern though, the pillowcases and upholstery are clean whites and blacks, there is a sleek computer on the mahogany desk, the lamps are in angular frames instead of cream cone lampshades.

He slowly drags his legs out of the bed, waits for a moment to check whether he will faint, then tentatively stands. He’s able to do it, so he takes a step, then another. The more he looks around the room, the more lived-in it looks, despite being sparsely decorated. There is a half-full laundry basket in the corner, the waste-paper bin is used and there is a book on the nightstand with a bookmark poking out of it, a pair of reading glasses resting on top. 

Zero detours from his direct route to the door, stopping by the desk to pick out a pencil, already sharpened to an impossible point.  _ If John Wick can do it _ , he thinks, then palms it.

He works on quieting his breathing before he tests the door. It swings open without a squeak, the hinges well-oiled. He takes a moment to appreciate the fact then moves into the corridor. It looks like he’s on the second floor, in one of four rooms. 

He doesn’t think that he could take a probably-armed, less-injured man in a fight so he moves past the doors quickly, again appreciating that there isn’t a single creaky floorboard in the corridor. 

He pauses at the top of the stairs, listening for sounds. He can see the front door just below, and it doesn’t look like the Concierge is in the hallway. There are several pairs of shiny black shoes on the shoe-rack by the door, but Zero can’t quite work out if a pair is missing because the Concierge is out, or whether it’s an artful display.

Zero crouches as much as he can without tearing anything, then makes his way down to the front door, much quicker and quieter than anyone should be in his condition. 

“I see you are awake, Sir.”

Zero keeps a lock on his grip on the pencil, fighting the instinct to  _ throw first think later _ . He turns, slowly, and sees the Concierge stood in the door to a kitchen. Zero has never seen the man outside of his work suit, had never imagined the man  _ owned  _ anything other than the clean-cut  _ Continental  _ uniform, but here he is in unstarched slacks and a dark grey roll-neck jumper, holding a steaming tea cup.

“You are, of course, free to leave whenever you wish. I hold no authority over you and the door is unlocked.” The Concierge keeps very still, his face in its standard neutrality. “However,” he says as Zero once again touches the door handle, “I would recommend at least three days of bedrest before Sir attempts any activity, a week before  _ strenuous  _ activity.”

“I am not going after him,” Zero says almost immediately, knowing it to be the truth even as he says it.

“Of course,” the Concierge says, giving nothing away about what he does or does not believe Zero will do once he’s out of the door. “Still, three days.”

Zero swallows, feels how rough his throat feels, starts to feel the sting of the smaller cuts even though he can’t feel the big one. “Is he alive?”

“It would not be my place to assume.” The concierge takes a small sip of his tea, then takes a half step backwards. “The kettle has just boiled. Would Sir care for some tea? A coffee, perhaps?”

Zero registers for a small moment that all of his students are dead. If he were to return home, there would be no-one to pour tea for him. He does, of course, know how to make it himself, but right now to do so would be so… final. 

Zero nods. “Thank you, tea would be nice.”

He follows the Concierge into the man’s kitchen, registering that the floor tiles are heated under his bare feet. The kitchen is modern and American; needlessly big, with many countertops and an island for guests to sit and drink wine at. The concierge indicates one of the metal stools for him to perch on, then at the sofas in the lounge area that opens out from the kitchen. 

“Whichever Sir feels more comfortable at.” 

While Zero would like to sit on the softer material right now, the sofas have their backs towards the kitchen, and as much as he trusts this man, he would like to watch as the Concierge makes his tea, so he perches without comfort on the high chair. 

“Ah, forgive me,” the Concierge says, ducking out of the room for a moment only to return with a pair of simple, Japanese-style slippers, the insole made of tatami. He places them on the floor beside Zero, washes his hands, and begins to make tea. “What would Sir prefer, I have an assortment of teas.”

“I’ll drink what you’re drinking, thank you.” 

The Concierge smiles, and Zero thinks that that was the right answer. 

“This is your house?”

“It is.”

“It’s nice.”

“Thank you.” The Concierge places a tea cup before Zero, and Zero sees that it is a match to the one the Concierge has. It is thin china, decorated with fine blue flowers. It is obviously of a very fine quality. 

“Thank  _ you _ .” 

The Concierge doesn’t sit, remains standing opposite Zero, his hands holding tea cup and saucer at chest-height. Zero thinks he’s probably doing that to show that he isn’t holding a weapon. 

“Was the Doctor here?”

“I am afraid the Doctor was indisposed last night. I carried out the required operations myself.”

“Is he dead?”

“He is alive,” the Concierge says, a small twinkle in his eye. 

“John Wick?”

“I could not possibly assume to say.”

Zero doesn’t bother to control his smile, leaning back on the stool. “Agh! So cool!”

“Sir is a fan of Mister Wick?” 

“Of course! He killed two men in a bar-”

“-With a pencil, yes, I was there.”

“No! Really?”

“Really.” It’s the Concierge’s turn to smile. It’s not wide, but it irradiates smugness. He then holds out a hand. “I will regale Sir with an anecdote if Sir would be so kind as to return me my pencil.” 

Zero hands it over without hesitation, even spinning the pencil so the pointy-end is towards him, as if he were passing a knife or pair of scissors. 

“Thank you,” the Concierge says, disappearing the pencil into some pocket. 

Zero sips his tea as he listens to the Concierge’s story, feeling like a child at a camp-fire listening to a ghost-story. Hearing the first-hand account is truly chilling and the Concierge’s even voice is a perfect accompaniment for the tale. 

“Baba Yaga,” Zero whispers once the man is done, his arms goose-pimpling at the thought. He rests his cup in its saucer and brings a hand to his chest, fingers light against the bandages. 

Zero can feel the Concierge watching him, and even he can admit that the action is likely very strange, so he drops his hand. 

“Dinner will be at seven,” the Concierge says, giving no indication either way. “Would Sir like to rest in bed before then?”

“Mm,” Zero admits, the slow pull of his muscles warning him he can’t keep upright for too much longer. “That would be good, thank you.” 

Zero leverages himself off of the stool and allows the Concierge to put an arm around his waist as they climb the stairs together. 

“Will that be everything Sir?” the Concierge asks as he puts a glass of water beside Zero in bed. 

“I’m not your prisoner.”

“No, Sir.”

“Am I a guest in your house?” 

“If that is what you would like to be, Sir.” 

“Then surely it should be you, not I, who is the Sir.” Zero lies back in the bed, feeling the feathers in the pillow settle around his head. “My name is Zero.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Zero can hear the cheek in the words, and he smiles. “Would you do me the honour of gifting me your name,  _ Sir _ ?”

“It is Charon, Mr. Zero.”

“Well, mister Charon, my humble thanks for allowing me stay in your beautiful house.”

“It is my unending pleasure,” Charon says, and Zero can hear the small bow even if he can’t hear it, “ _ Sir. _ ”

-

When Zero really is eighteen and he has lived in New York for two years, he finds a shivering stray outside of the restaurant. It’s in a soggy cardboard box that smells of urine and unhealthy faeces, and he can count its ribs. 

He hoses it down in the alley and stuffs it inside his jacket, walking briskly to his apartment, only stopping at a small bodega to grab a small pack of kibble. He is not being paid enough to afford anything but the most basic brand, but he promises the small dog that he will grab bones from next door’s Vietnamese restaurant tomorrow. He can’t afford the meat, and he doesn’t know if dogs should eat raw fish, so it’ll have to do until he can go to the library to flick through a book about dog care. 

Since he shares his room with three other boys and their apartment has a zero-tolerance policy for pets, Zero pretends that he’s come down with a cold and gets straight into bed, pulling his ratty covers over his head, the stray still pressed to his chest. It has stopped its uncontrollable shivering but it still kicks out as it shudders. He thinks it looks like a human with a fever. 

_ What if this dog gives me rabies and I die?  _ Zero thinks distantly, the rapidly overheating bed amplifying the smell of filthy dog and sweat-drenched human.  _ What if they find me in the morning and I have died and I smell of dog shit and sushi restaurant? _

Zero realises that he has this thought from a point of true apathy.  _ I am depressed,  _ he registers.  _ I have stopped trying _ . He thinks about his parents for the first time in nine months, thinks about how he would have just graduated from High School, how he should be enrolled in a University by now. How he might have gone to Koshien with his baseball team, how he might have started accountancy lessons with his mother. 

Zero clutches the dog tighter to his chest and cries, really cries for his parents, feeling their loss so, so keenly. So what if they had hidden their lives from him? He knew that they had loved him, he knew that they had always worked so hard for his sake. He would never know what they really thought of him living his life like this, but he knew he never wanted to disrespect their memory by  _ giving up _ . 

_ Dearest parents up in Heaven,  _ Zero prays as he hears the little dog’s heartbeat begin to fade,  _ Please take care of this dog for me as I could not.  _

Zero sneaks out of the apartment when he hears all of his roommates have fallen asleep and walks to the nearest cemetery. It takes him several hours because he cannot afford public transport or a taxi. He finds a corner of the cemetery under a tree and he digs a grave for the dog, prays for it and his parents, then he walks home. 

-

Zero can tell by the light on his face that Charon had not woken him up for dinner. The midday sun is warm and he is hungry so he sits up and registers the room. It looks exactly as it had yesterday, except the book has moved from one nightstand to the other. 

Zero moves around the bed to pick it up, leafs through the pages. Zero recognises some of the names of the characters so it must be a Classic, though he doesn’t know or care which one it is. He carefully puts it back where he’d found it before making his way out of the room. 

This time he casually opens each door as he passes it. Across the hall is a bathroom, very new and surprisingly large, both a bath and a shower unit, twin sinks, fancy-brand soaps and powders and gels lined up neatly and apparently unused, just like in a hotel. 

The room beside it is a library. Zero investigates the books, everything from foreign-language encyclopedias to this year’s novels. Each book looks read, which surprises Zero. He’d expect a man like Charon to keep his books looking pristine, not a dent in its spine. He runs his fingers across some titles and picks one out at random, thumbing through it. Every so often there are fine pencil markings. Zero trawls through them, finds that Charon’s favourite notation is a simple ‘Interesting’. 

_ Mord tried to become a god again. He hurled himself at the sky, only to lurch and stumble and catch his balance…  _ __ _ Interesting.  _

_ We had all been too small in our thoughts, too small to realize what might be revealed to us if we really looked, if we really saw. …  _ __ _ Interesting.  _

Zero laughs when he notices that the novel’s character is called Wick, and that the underlined statements really could apply to John Wick.  _ Could Charon also have thought so?  _ Zero doubted it, but it was entertaining all the same. 

The last room on the second floor looks like a walk-in dressing room, but the wardrobes are just-too small not to have secret panels of weapons hidden behind them. Zero doesn’t dare trying to fiddle in this room, knowing he’s likely already set off several alarms and traps, but he does indulge a small part of him by brushing a finger against one of Charon’s suits. Zero doesn’t know much about expensive clothing, but he can feel that it is absolutely worth more than anything in his wardrobe at home. 

Charon is not downstairs either so Zero takes a quick wander around the downstairs. It is dominated by the large lounge-kitchen, there is a small toilet with sink, and there is a locked room about the size of the bedroom upstairs. Zero makes a half-hearted attempt at picking the door, but it’s obvious after about half a second that it’s not your standard insert-key-and-turn lock so he gives up. 

Zero goes to the kitchen and sees the note on the island. He likes that he can tell it’s Charon’s finest handwriting, looped and obviously written in a fountain pen. 

_ Good morning, Mister Zero.  _

_ I have returned to my duties at the Continental. It did not seem prudent to wake you from your rest.  _

_ You may help yourself to food from the fridge. I have prepared several light meals that need only be heated up. However, as I do not know your dietary restrictions, you may use the phone to order food that befits your diet. There is an amount of cash in the top-right drawer of the table beside the front door.  _

_ You may use the shower or bathing facilities upstairs. Please do not get your wounds wet. There are fresh bandages in the first aid kit below the right-hand sink in the bathroom.  _

_ Should your wounds affect you and you need immediate assistance, there is a phone on the same table beside the front door, in the library upstairs, and a burner mobile in the bedside table.  _

_ I am obligated to remind you that you are free to leave as you wish. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that it is recommended that you have two further days of bedrest, and six more before strenuous activity.  _

_ Take two of the pills on the bedside table at nine PM if I have not returned by then.  _

_ I hope that the remainder of your stay is pleasant. _

_ Yours,  _

_ Charon. _

Zero thinks that it’s probably unwarranted to feel so much pride at being referred to as ‘you’ instead of as ‘Sir’, especially since it’s a handwritten letter. 

He opens the fridge and investigates the meals Charon has somehow managed to cook while he’s been out cold. Each box is labelled in Charon’s less-neat sharpie-rather-than-fountain-pen handwriting. 

‘Lamb Tagine with couscous. Ingredients: Lamb,  **onions** ,  **garlic** , tomato, dried apricots, dates, sultanas,  **flaked almonds** , spices.’

‘Vegetable Lasagne. Ingredients: Eggplant, zucchini, carrot,  **milk, cheese, flour, wheat pasta** , tomato,  **onion, garlic** , herbs.’

There was a vegan option and an option without onions and garlic, but Zero thought that the Tagine smelled the nicest, and was something he rarely ever ate, so he decanted the food into a dish and - realised that Charon did not own a microwave. For such a modern house, that was a strange hang-up to have. 

He carefully split the couscous from the tagine and dumped them out into two small pots, spending ten minutes warming the food until he could put it back out on the plate and dig in. 

It was very good home cooking. It tasted especially good as the first meal he’d had since he’d chased John Wick two days ago. Zero had to force himself to pace his forkfuls, nearly choking twice as he shovelled the food into his mouth. 

He washed his plates and pans carefully, found a tea-towel and dried them and put them away, then found a cloth and wiped clean the surfaces before cleaning the sink. Just because he’d been stabbed through the chest didn’t mean he would leave another man’s kitchen looking like a pigsty. 

Tired from the bout of movement, Zero sat on the couch for a while, considering turning on the television but not really caring about whatever would be showing. He opted to fiddle with Charon’s small audio player, pressing play on whatever Charon had been last listening to. Unlike the library this really did live up to expectation, some piece of classical music; Zero didn’t know who. It was fairly upbeat and it sounded like a lot of instruments, so he relaxed into the sofa and dozed, feeling full and charmed. 

Around mid-afternoon Zero woke and felt greasy. He made it upstairs alone by taking it stair-by-stair, leaning heavily on the bannister. There was a stool beside the bath, the kind one could use to sit in a shower. Zero drew a bath and stripped, found a sponge then carefully sat, sponging around his wounds. Washing his head seemed like too much of a chore and he was immediately thankful he did not have John Wick’s hair to wash. 

He carefully hosed himself down in the shower, towelled himself dry with what he presumed was a clean towel and walked nude to Charon’s wardrobe. He wondered if Charon owned t-shirts. 

The closest he could find was an older-looking undershirt and a pair of sports trousers that even Zero couldn’t bring himself to call sweatpants. 

Zero wondered what Charon would think if he used the food cash downstairs to buy some comfy shorts and loose t-shirts. He would probably approve of it more than Zero wearing  _ his  _ clothes. 

Feeling shower-warm and food-sated, Zero grabbed the book he’d been so interested in from the library then returned to bed, flicking to page one. It was the first book he’d read for pleasure since he was sixteen. 

-

Zero was twenty-three. He was part of a team of five: not the most junior, but not a senior either. His sword skills had improved vastly and some superiors had started taking a keen interest in his development. 

The mission was a simple one: a family home in New York. Kill everyone in it. They were not told why, they were not told who these people were. There were several dozen guards and Zero was personally responsible for downing seventeen of them. The departure of the couple in the master suite had been the prize for the senior leader of the team, and the oldest other team-member had been responsible for the children. One of Zero’s juniors had volunteered himself for the role.

Zero was growing his hair out for the first time since joining the baseball club in Elementary school. It itched his neck and sometimes got in his eyes while he ran. He didn’t understand why people had long hair. 

Zero waited outside while his seniors killed the family inside. He was pretending to be patrolling, but really he’d noticed the dog-house when they’d been storming in, and he wanted to know whether the dog was still… active. 

There was a low whimper as Zero crouched in the entrance to the house, the soft growl of an animal not used to having to protect itself. 

Zero held his hand out towards it, imitating a motion he might make if he were giving it a treat. It pressed itself further into the wall. He could hear its heart thundering.

“Terrified of me, huh.” Zero wiggled his fingers towards the dog, and the dog made a pitiful sound, like it was begging for its life. 

Zero felt like he’d just been punched in the chest. He sat back in the ground, then pushed himself away from the kennel. In the moonlight he could see that his hand was covered in blood. 

_ Yeah _ , he thought.  _ I would be terrified of me, too.  _

Zero stood up, brushed dirt off of his backside. 

He hoped the shitty child-killing junior didn’t hear the puppy’s cries. 

-

Zero feels a weight lifted off his chest as he slowly ascends from his dream. He can register that it’s night, can feel the cool evening breeze from the window of the room. 

Zero opens his eyes to see the Concierge,  _ Charon  _ stood above him, placing the book Zero had been clutching on the bedside table. 

“Hungry?” Charon asks simply. Zero shakes his head. “Bed rest?” Zero nods. “Very good.”

Charon pulls the covers up over Zero’s chest and Zero closes his eyes again. 

A moment later, the other side of the bed dips and he can feel Charon getting into bed. Zero rolls towards him with a frown… but then his brain is more interested in sleep than it is the question he’d been about to ask, so he lets it go. 

-

Zero is thirty five and he has his own restaurant. It’s almost unheard of. His students train both as sushi chefs and as swordmasters. 

He gets a few comments, can hear people talk about him, saying he’s got no talent, that he’s obviously got connections, some secret sponsor. 

They’re not wrong; he’s still in contact with the uncle that had brought him here nineteen years ago, but every penny Zero owns, he has worked for.  _ Well, whatever _ . People think what people think. 

He’s got his own apartment, he’s got his own restaurant… what better time than to head to the adoption agency and pick out a dog. He wants something cute, something to love when he comes home. Someone who will love him. 

He’s tried dating, has gone out with Japanese girls his friends have recommended, non-Japanese girls his friends haven’t recommended, and not-girls his friends don’t know. He’s liked all of them, but sometimes he wants to build a home, and it’s hard to think about home and to not think about his parents. To think about how their restaurant had been in a ‘fire’ that even the police didn’t register as arson. 

Dogs could smell gas leaks, could smell intruders. Even if Zero got assassinated, he had every hope that his dog friend could escape, or at least live on to be his killer’s friend. 

He’s busy that week so he puts off his visit to the pound. 

He’s busy the next week, so he puts off his visit to the pound. 

It becomes a year and he thinks  _ I should give up on this one thing.  _

-

Zero wakes up before the sun rises. 

He’s lucid fairly quickly, the process sped up as he registers the person sleeping next to him.  _ Friend, don’t stab _ , his brain fires even as his hand scrabbles for the kitchen knife he’d placed under the pillow yesterday. 

It’s Charon, glasses-less and sleeping. Measured ins, measured outs. Sleeping or very good at pretending. 

_ One bedroom _ , Zero thinks. For a fairly large apartment, it only has one bedroom. Hm. 

Zero watches Charon, propping his head up on a bent arm. He wonders how many people had seen New York’s  _ Continental _ ’s Concierge sleeping. He wasn’t pretty, not like John Wick was, or handsome like the Adjudicator was. He looked sweet. 

How would the Concierge react to being pinned in his own bed? 

Would he beg? Would he make Zero?

Zero fell back into his pillows. He wondered if this was what Stockholm syndrome felt like, or whether it was the aftereffects of being so close to John Wick. He touched his fingers to his chest wound, fingers digging under the bandages, searching for an entry point to his skin. 

A warm hand pressed his on his chest. 

“You will infect it.”

“Just itchy,” Zero lied, turning to face Charon. Charon definitely did not looked convinced, nor did he look impressed. 

Charon tilted his head back so he was facing the ceiling and closed his eyes. “Mister Wick would not be impressed if you were to die of an infected wound.”

“‘You’.”

There’s a beat of silence. “If  _ Sir  _ were to die of an infected wound.”

“Very smooth, I barely even noticed it.” Charon’s elbow dug into Zero’s upper-arm and Zero laughed. “Ha! And here I thought you Concierges were unflappable.” 

“If Sir does not feel he can return to sleep, may I offer assistance?”

“Are you threatening to drug me,” Zero said in a mock tone of offense. “As if I am not immune to all common forms of incapacitating chemicals!” 

“I would not have you underestimate a  _ Continental  _ Concierge, Sir.”

Zero quickly closes his eyes, loving the game. “I would never.”

“Very good. Is that everything Sir?”

“Of course, Sir,” Zero mimics. “May I be of any service to you, Sir?”

Charon makes a small sound that sounds like a stifled snort, but he’s silent after that, and Zero falls back into an easy sleep. 

-

Cats, unlike dogs, gravitate towards Zero’s restaurant. 

His students are hardworking and far too rigid so Zero enjoys playing being their goofball uncle from time to time. He is hard on them, and in every way as strict as his parents were on him, but that does not mean he cannot occasionally see the white creature jump up onto his counter and yell out ‘welcome!’ 

After the rote chorus of ‘welcome’s from his students, one or two will look to their new customer and laugh a sound of such joy, and it will be that one’s responsibility to slip their cat friend a sliver of fish and a dish of cat-safe milk.

Most of the cats that attend the restaurant have owners; Zero had been curious and had checked most of their collars, but even the strays he kept a professional distance from. 

He likes cats just as much as he likes dogs, and he feels that familiar yearning whenever he glances at the soft movement from the corner of his eye… but no. He knows by now that this restaurant is his home, his students are his family. He does not need an animal to complicate matters. 

He often feels sad that this is the life he has had chosen for him, so he fills this sadness with learning. Now as a tutor, he is the one requests come through. He is the one people must deal with, and he is the one who must learn about the intricate relationships that span New York and the rest of the world. He must learn about the High Table and who works over and under it, and he must learn about their dogs. 

He learns about John Wick,  _ Baba Yaga _ , and he feels such excitement he jogs for an hour more than his usual routine. John Wick is something — someone to work towards. He has never settled for ‘good enough’, but now he works until he can feel exhaustion in his very bones. He works until he can disappear, he works until swords slice through the air, through meat and through bone without a single sound. 

John Wick. One day he will fight John Wick, and it will be a true delight. 

-

There is a tongue licking at his face. Zero does not confuse it for a moment, it is obviously a very very friendly dog, he is just confused at why it is here in his (and Charon’s) bed. 

“Good morning to you too, friend!” Zero appreciates that the dog has not clambered onto his chest but is in bed beside him. He wipes the shoulder of his t-shirt over his face so that he can open his eyes and sees a friendly grey blob panting next to him. 

“Spot!” he says, immediately going in for bellyrubs that Spot falls onto his back for. He spends ten minutes making unintelligible cooing noises while Spot makes satisfied noises under him before his need to pee overtakes his joy at seeing the dog. 

He comes out of the toilet to find Spot sat patiently outside of the door, and the dog follows him down the stairs to the kitchen. 

Charon is sat at the kitchen island finishing his breakfast, a newspaper open before him. There is a cling-wrapped plate before the seat next to him, so Zero sits. “Good morning, Mister Charon.”

“Good morning, Mister Zero.”

“Spot is here!”

Charon glances towards the dog sat patiently beside the pair of them. “The dog?”

“Yes, John Wick’s dog! Does he have a name?”

“No.”

“See, I knew it.” Zero tucks into his breakfast. “He had no collar and would not respond to American dog names and so I call him Spot.”

Spot reacts to the name, ears twitching in response, dopey expression attentive. “See! He likes it!”

“I do see.” Charon folds his newspaper and puts it beside Zero should he want to read it. “The dog does not have spots.” 

“I know. It is like calling a dog Buster or Buddy in America, in Japan we call our dogs Spot and Pochi.” 

Charon watches Spot for a moment, then smiles. “Noted.”

Zero scratches his chin, points his fork at Charon. “You named him.”

Charon’s lip pulls into a wider smile, caught. “I did.”

“You called him Buster.” Spot’s attention flicks up again and Zero grins. “He is Buster-Spot!”

“I have many names,” Charon says peaceably, “I do not see why the dog cannot also.”

Zero nods, digging that mentality. “Why is Buster Spot here?”

“Mister Wick does not take risks when it comes to his dog. The  _ Continental  _ does not have a kennel facility, but-”

“You have a soft spot,” Zero finishes. “Mm, I understand.”

“Mister Zero also has a fondness for dogs?”

“I do. I also have a fondness for John Wick.”

Charon doesn’t react to that, but his smile returns to its neutral state. “I do not know what you mean.”

“If the Manager were on the run, would you care for his dog?”

Charon is silent so Zero claps a friendly hand on his shoulder. “He is very cool.”

“Would Sir like coffee?”

Zero allows the change of subject with a nod of his head. “Ah but please, relax, I must do something-” He extends a hand towards the coffee machine across the Island and there is faint whack across the back of his hand. He recoils, and sees that Charon is already standing.

“What would Sir prefer? Perhaps a Cafe Latte?”

“I can make coffee, Mister Concierge.”

“I have no doubt, Sir.”

“I trained for many, many, many years before I was allowed to even touch a fish,” Zero says, puffing out his chest. “I had to wash dishes for ten years before I could use a knife! I think I can handle a simple coffee maker!” He extends his hand towards the machine again, but receives a second rap on the knuckles. 

“You may use my knives and my sink,” Charon says. “You have my permission to use anything in my kitchen however you may wish.” He touches his glasses before placing a protective hand on his machine. “But you may not touch my coffee maker.”

Zero hums in consideration, weighing up Charon’s tone with how quickly Zero could  _ tap  _ the coffeemaker with his finger. Maybe without a hole in his chest, he might stand a chance. 

“Is it a gift from Mister Wick?”

Charon does not roll his eyes, but Zero can see that were he a lesser man, a man who did not regularly deal with customers at the  _ Continental _ , he absolutely would have done. “No.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps you bought it with your first salary after doing a magnificent job for Mister Wick.”

“I am very particular about my coffee machine.”

Zero sits back, uncoiling. “Ah, apologies if I have overstepped.”

“I am aware it is odd.”

“You are talking to an old sushi chef. I would not allow anyone to touch my knives. A Latte would be nice, thank you.”

The smell of coffee fills the kitchen, soft and creamy, not aggressive like at the coffeeshops or harsh like the instant grains he usually uses. It is almost like a bitter chocolate. 

Charon places the mug before him, turning the handle just-so so that it is in the perfect position for his hand and Zero nods a thanks. He allows the smell to waft at his nose, then presses his fingers against the white china, feeling the heat tingle against his finger-tips. 

“Do you have work today?”

“Yes. I will leave in a half-hour and return near midnight.”

“A long shift.”

“The usual. I left earlier yesterday and arrived home sooner.”

“Hmmm.” Zero takes a sip of the coffee, lets out a satisfied “Ahh,” the heat of the liquid and the quality taste almost dream-like. “I was planning on cooking you dinner as thanks, but perhaps it can wait until tomorrow.”

“Perhaps,” Charon allows.

“What time are you working tomorrow?”

“I will be home for dinner.”

“Hmm,” Zero says again, registering that Charon’s way around words is very easy to understand when you listen to what he’s hiding. “It is not good to bunk work, Mister Concierge.” 

“I have not taken a single day’s holiday for nearly thirty years, Mister Zero. I believe the  _ Continental  _ may soon be in need of a younger Concierge.”

Zero opens his mouth to protest that Charon is  _ not old at all _ and that he is  _ letting the side down by giving his job to some whippersnapper  _ when he sees Charon sit on the stool again, sees that the action is stiffer, that Charon is no longer hiding that he has an injury on his side.

“How serious?”

“Many humans are capable of living with one kidney.”

Zero drops his fork. “But- you said, the doctor-”

“The doctor was kind enough to organise the procedure despite his shoulder injury. I am afraid this meant he could not operate on you.”

“So you fixed my chest wound after he fixed your ruptured organ?” 

“It was rather the team effort.”

“You performed surgery on me moments after having surgery yourself.”

“The doctor has some very powerful stimulants.”

“That is  _ so  _ cool! Hey! Spot! Isn’t your Concierge friend very cool!” Spot gives an affirmative woof, tail thumping on the floor, obviously happy to be involved in whatever they’re talking about. 

“I simply performed my duties.”

“But you didn’t have to.” Zero waves his mug at Charon. “In fact, it’s against your party’s interests to heal me. Unless you plan on extracting details about the Adjudicator from me, which I know you know is a fruitless task, or you plan on charming me to be your ally, which could be a wasted effort as my mobility will never be the same as it once was.”

Charon’s face is a knowing-neutral. He wags a finger at the dog, who jumps up onto his hind legs, resting his forelegs in Charon’s lap, receiving a hearty scratch about the ears from the Concierge. 

“I will return at midnight. There is food for the dog in that cupboard. If you are capable of taking him on a short walk, I would be much obliged. There are spare keys on the table by the door.”

“Buster-Spot,” Zero says in reply. “He has a name now, you must call him Buster Spot.”

“As Sir wishes,” Charon replies, then goes upstairs to get changed. 

\- 

It only takes a few minutes of walking outside of Charon’s house to navigate where he is. A few blocks away is the end of the route Zero tends to run on his longer exercises, which means his restaurant is about a two hour walk from here. It’s about thirty minutes on the bus in the post rush-hour traffic, so he and Spot jump on. 

The ‘closed for a few days for renovation’ sign on his shutter is still up, and the trap on it hasn’t been activated. It also hasn’t been reset, which means none of his students have returned. 

He allows himself to feel that loss for a moment longer, crouching to Spot and giving the dog a tight hug. Spot licks his face with a happy slobber and Zero wipes his face in Spot’s neck. It’s nice having a dog. 

He walks around the side of the building and heads up to the apartment over the shop, checking again for trespassers or homecomers, but it’s the same as the shutters downstairs. 

Zero picks up a gear-bag he’d prepped for the fight and empties it out. A few guns, many knives, some clothes and body-armour. He returns it all to its place around the apartment, hidden behind fake walls then goes to his real closet and takes a stack of his comfortable t-shirts, a few smarter shirts and some underwear. He folds up a pair of trousers and sweatpants, then roots around in a cupboard until he finds an unopened canister of tea he’d brought back from Japan from his last visit. 

He opens his fridge and throws out anything that’s rotted, dangles a few slices of deli meat into Spot’s mouth and makes himself a lunchbox from stuff that hasn’t gone bad but will soon. 

He goes to his desk next and flicks through his books for the restaurant while he lets his answerphone play him his missed messages. He takes an hour to reply to the suppliers and staff he needs to reply to, telling them that he’s in and out of the hospital right now and that the restaurant will be closed for at least a few weeks, that he’ll call them when he’s ready to re-open. He gets many genuine ‘get better soon’ comments that warm him up, then he sets a new answerphone message saying the same thing. 

He doesn’t bother packing anything from his bathroom, knowing he already prefers all of Charon’s fancy soaps and toothbrushes. 

He glances at the clock, realises he can probably eat lunch now and does so, giving half to Spot when his appetite runs out. 

Then he sits back down at the desk, pulls out a small black notebook from a secret compartment and picks up the phone. He tells seventeen families that their sons, husbands, brothers and friends won’t be returning home. 

After the third call, Spot comes to sit at his feet, a comforting warmth against his legs. 

-

“Good day at work?”

Zero can hear Charon adjust himself, taking a moment to realise Zero is not asleep. Charon sits down in the bed, pulling the bedsheets over his legs. “No fights between the  _ Continental  _ and the High Table to report.”

“Disappointing.”

“I thought you might think so. Did the dog behave himself?”

“Who?”

Charon removes his glasses and places them on the bedside table before giving an conceding “Master Spot Buster.”

“Master Buster Spot Jonathan Wick.”

Charon turns to look at him, one eyebrow rising. “You have added more.”

“As you say, many humans have many names. He is a good dog who deserves many names.”

“As you wish.” Charon settles down in the bed and turns off his side lamp.

“You have to add one now.”

“I could not possibly beat ‘Buster Spot Jonathan Wick’.”

“If you love him you’ll give him another name.”

Charon breathes in, then sighs. 

“François Rabelais.”

“Master Buster Spot François Rabelais Jonathan Wick, hm. Yes, I like it. Who is it?”

“François Rabelais was an author. Sir might enjoy his writing, he has a sense of humour.”

“Okay!” Zero says, tucking his hands under his head, “After finishing this one, I will read François Rabelais in honour of our favourite dog.”

“Very good, Sir.”

“Does it turn you on, calling people Sir?”

“No,” Charon says, ever the stoic. “Does it affect you,  _ Sir _ ?”

“I’m still thinking about it,” Zero replies with a grin, snuggling soundly into his side of the bed. “Goodnight, Charon.”

Charon lets out an amused breath. “Goodnight, Zero.” 

“Goodnight Master Buster Spot François Rabelais Jonathan Wick.”

“Goodnight, Master Buster Spot François Rabelais Jonathan Wick,” Charon echoes.

The dog lying at the foot of the bed yawns happily. 

-

Zero fingers the rough spikes of hair growing over his scalp with a sniff of distaste. It’s been a while since he’s allowed a day to go by without sweeping a razor over his skin, keeping it as smooth as he’s used to. 

With three days of fluff he’s looking scruffy, like some grandpa who’s forgotten how to shave. 

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror and mixes a shaving foam with Charon’s fancy equipment, tests the edge of the razor with a finger and begins to scrape it over his skin, years of practice meaning he can do it without needing to look.

It’s a very soothing activity, the slide and scrape, white foam with speckles of short black hair falling into the sink. He had taught many of his students to find a time in the day to spend ten minutes doing something for themselves. Whether that was watching a funny video, eating a rare treat or, like Zero, some personal grooming, he urged them to spend it with their thoughts away from the day. It was not a time to plan a route to work, or to win an argument, or to think about dinner, it was a time to check in with one’s self. 

He doubted many of his younger students followed his advice, but he knew the elder ones benefited greatly from taking the time to destress for a handful of moments outside of the restaurant. 

He thought to his last moments at the  _ Continental,  _ how he had not heeded his own words by using his shaving time to talk to the Adjudicator when they had walked past. He wanted to pretend that that was why he lost to John Wick, but that was the weakness talking, looking for any excuse. 

He takes a moment to breathe as he cleans the razor off half way. Again, his mind is drifting away from himself. That’s fine, but he really would like to find some calmness in the process. 

_ ‘Does it affect you, Sir?’ _

So Charon is interested too. That was gratifying, and was certainly a large part of why Zero had remained here. It was a curious match, a lowly assassin with a Concierge, but stranger things had happened. He wondered how long it would take for the Adjudicator to find out that he had betrayed them, was literally in bed with the enemy. 

He doubted they would care that much, what with him having been defeated by John Wick at his lowest ever point. 

He’s nearly all the way around when he reaches a patch that he has to reach for and his chest tears with pain. He drops the razor to keep from stabbing himself, then curls in on the pain. He’s unconsciously avoided using certain muscles over the last few days, but the unusual way he had to bend had obviously used a muscle that was definitely severed seven ways to Sunday. 

He sighs all over again as he feels his shirt begin to wet, groans to see that he’s staining one of his favourite t-shirts with fresh blood splotching through the bandages. 

The pain wasn’t a simple flare either, it’s not going away at all; it is in fact steadily increasing. 

He carefully kicks the razor away from him then guides himself to fall on the floor without hitting his head on any porcelain, back against the sink. He puts a thumb and finger in his mouth and whistles. A moment later Spot is there, whining and nosing at his chest. 

“Smart phone,” Zero asks the dog. “You know what that is? Mobile phone?” He makes the phone symbol with his hand, putting it to his ear then mimics the sound of a vibration, then of a ringtone. 

Spot must understand him because he legs it out the bathroom. There are dull noises from the bedroom and less than a minute later Spot returns with a burner clenched lightly in his mouth. 

“Such a good doggy!” Zero tells him, gingerly lifting one arm to pat Spot, the other removing the phone. 

He flips it open, sees there’s one number on speeddial and calls it. 

“Good Afternoon, Sir,” Charon says after a single ring. 

“Bleeding, going to pass out, bathroom. Not in immediate danger…”

Zero slips the rest of the way to the floor, vaguely registering the sound of the phone clattering on the tiles. 

“I will be there shortly,” he hears distantly. “Spot, pressure on the wound…….”

-

Zero wakes up in bed, can hear Charon sat at the desk using the computer.

“Aww,” he says faintly, testing his level of pain as he talks, “I missed all the action.”

Charon has turned around in his seat, and Zero opens his eyes just quick enough to see a dash of  _ unimpressed  _ tinge Charon’s expression. 

“And what action would that be?”

Zero notes the lack of ‘Sir’. “My mighty Concierge bursting through the door to find Spot executing his training with excellence, pressing a towel to my torn stitches, then heroically carrying me to bed before operating once again.”

“I performed the surgery while you remained unconscious where you fell.”

“You operated on the floor of your bathroom?” Zero jokingly goes to pull at the bandages. “I bet there’s dog hair and toenail clippings inside me now!”

“If you would like to lodge a formal complaint, Sir, I can arrange the paperwork.”

“You’re just impressed I guessed what happened so accurately.” 

“Sir must rest, recuperate his strength after his… accident.”

“You were going to say ‘stupidity’, I saw your mouth move.”

Charon offers Zero a look of real smugness before he stands. “If Sir has no further need of me, I must clean the bathroom floor of blood, hair and toenails.” 

He begins to roll his sleeves up, and Zero notices the blood that has seeped into the cuffs. Charon hadn’t spared a moment to roll up his expensive sleeves before helping Zero not bleed to death. 

“Thank you, Charon.”

“You are welcome, Zero.”

-

The next day, Charon helps Zero to sit up, slathers a small amount of foam on the back of his head and slides the razor against Zero’s scalp, hand warm and skilled against Zero’s skin. 

Charon had initially said that Zero deserved looking like a clown with one unshaved segment, but had given up fairly quickly after Zero threatened to have another go himself as soon as Charon left for work. 

For some reason, his body treats this second injury more seriously than the first, and Zero spends almost a week in bed, at first simply exhausted, then gaining a fever that leaves him too weak even to make fun of Charon.

Charon, who is so utterly tease-able because he has taken the week off from work, because he has cooled Zero’s brow, has bathed Zero with a soft sponge. 

“You  _ like _ me,” Zero says in a sing-song voice when Charon does something inexplicably nice like feeding Zero soup, and each time Charon responds with the same “I could not possibly comment.”

\- 

Zero manages to convince Charon to go to work the next week, the fever long broken and Zero able to cross the hall to use the bathroom unaided. Spot’s had intensive First Aid response training in the last week, but Charon still places a burner phone in every room anyway. 

He hides them where he thinks Zero won’t find them, but he’s not that good. 

-

Zero is waiting for Charon in the kitchen when he returns from work. Charon takes his time out in the hall before entering the kitchen, looking very unimpressed that Zero is both out of bed and standing in front of a large spread of food. 

“I had cravings,” Zero says, diving onto one of the stools before Charon can murder him where he’s stood. 

“Mister Zero might have called for a delivery.”

“No-where in New York makes Japanese comfort food like this.” 

Charon does not look like he believes Zero, but the damage has been done, now so there isn’t much point arguing. “I will change and be down shortly.” 

He really isn’t long, is back just as Zero spoons two ladles of miso into two wooden bowls. 

“May I help?” 

“Rice in the rice-cooker into the small bowls, please.”

While Charon does his task, Zero removes the clingfilm from his feast. It really is all comfort food, stuff so full of fat and sugar and carbohydrates that his usually Spartan training regimen would never allow, but his body is craving it; his  _ mind  _ is craving it, needing to feel like he really is at home. Safe, here.

“ _ Champon, karaage, korokke, niku-jagga ebi-fry,”  _ Zero says, pointing to each dish as he goes, “Cabbage,  _ hottate misoshiru,  _ cobb salad.”

“Cobb salad?”

“My mother really liked cobb salad,” Zero says with a shrug, already picking up a mountain of salad with his chopsticks and putting it onto his side plate. “Lemon?” he asks, picking up a wedge and hovering over the fried chicken. When Charon nods, he gives each piece a generous squeeze and picks up the piece he’s been eyeing since he’d fried them. It’s juicy and fatty and crispy and salty and it makes his heart sing. 

Zero eats and eats, everything tasting incredible. Out of the corner of his eye he can see that while Charon is taking it slower, he’s enjoying every bite, savouring the flavours before taking a sip of soup and a palette-cleansing mouthful of rice. 

They finish nearly everything, leaving just enough for Zero’s lunch tomorrow. As Charon begins to wash up the dishes, Zero remembers the tea he’d brought and puts a pot of water on the hob to boil. 

“It’s from my mother’s hometown,” Zero says as he scoops a spoonful into a strainer. He pours a little hot water into each cup to warm it, then tips the contents out before pouring water through the tea-laden strainer into each cup. He doesn’t know if it’s ‘right’, but he remembers that that was how his mother used to make tea for his father.

“Thank you,” Charon says on receiving his cup, and they take the steaming tea over to the sofas. 

It’s their first night spent not-in-bed-resting, and Zero finds himself in a rare situation - at a loss for words. Charon seems content sitting in the silence, warming his hands with the tea, so Zero lets it happen. 

He slurps his tea, then winces. “Ah, sorry.”

Charon glances over at him, his eyes obviously checking for a spill. “Hm?”

“I thought my lack of table etiquette might offend you.”

“You may behave how you wish, Mister Zero.”

“You are a very proper man. Very English. Many of the English and those pretending to be like the English don’t like when people make loud noises while eating.” 

“I can assure you, Mister Zero, while I appreciate manners, I am not keen on emanating the English.”

“Hmm,” Zero says, very obviously not believing him. 

“You may believe what you like, Mister Zero, but you will feel no shame over ‘impropriety’ while you are in my house.”

It’s funny to hear this said while Charon is sat with his back ramrod straight, looking proper even in his ‘comfortable clothing’, a polo and slacks while Zero is still in the same T-shirt he wore to bed last night, and there are food stains from the marathon day of cooking all over his sweatpants. “Even though I’m a complete mess?”

“Especially then.”

Zero takes a moment to let that sink in, then gapes. “You’re so smooth, Charon! So  _ fucking  _ cool!” 

When Charon directs that smug smile of his at Zero, Zero has to put his mug down on the coffee table, pulls Charon’s off of him too. 

Zero kneels over Charon’s lap, straddling him, and Charon’s hands come to rest on Zero’s waist. Zero lifts Charon’s glasses off of his face, depositing them next to the twin mugs on the table then turns back to cup Charon’s jaw, rests their foreheads together. 

“I’m going to kiss you now, Mister Charon.”

“Please,” Charon says, so Zero obliges, pressing feathery kisses across Charon’s lips. 

Charon’s breathing begins to shift, his fingers tightening on the hem of Zero’s shirt. Zero smiles, ghosts nearly-kisses until Charon dips closer to catch one, then another. Zero is already warm and excited, cannot wait to see where Charon takes this. 

Zero experiments with a small grind into Charon’s lap, feels Charon’s helpless jerk up, feels Charon pulling Zero tighter against him, feels Charon hum a satisfied purr in Zero’s mouth-

“Stop.” 

Zero stops immediately, pulling back, his hands coming up near his head in surrender. 

Charon’s hands press reassuringly on Zero’s sides, Charon’s head resting in the crook of Zero’s neck. Zero slowly lowers his hands so that they cover the back of Charon’s neck. 

“We must stop before both aggravate our wounds.” This time, Zero can hear the effort of restraint in Charon’s voice and Zero finds himself laughing, not feeling pressured, not feeling abandoned. “I cannot operate on you if you tear a hole where my kidney should be.”

Zero gently pulls Charon’s face from where it is resting, presses a teasing kiss on the corner of Charon’s mouth. “To be continued?”

“To be continued,” Charon echoes. 

Zero draws out a sigh, but falls backwards on the couch, conceding to the point but childish enough to leave his legs draped over Charon’s lap, a reminder that despite the chest wound he’s still perfectly able to continue should Charon change his mind. 

Charon strokes Zero’s inner knee for a while, eventually dipping forwards to collect his tea from the table, and they stay like that for the rest of the evening. 

-

When Zero wakes up, there is a medium-sized box on Charon’s pillow, a small rectangle of card tucked neatly under the pretty blue ribbon. 

‘For Master Spot, mostly. - C.’

Zero pulls at the ribbon until it unravels, then lifts the lid off the box to reveal a collar. It is simple at a first glance, designed for comfort rather than to be ornate, but the leather is plush and beautifully weathered, the colour almost like the wood of Charon’s furniture. The buckle is old-fashioned and chunky and Zero can already imagine Spot loving it. 

There is a single piece of silver dangling from the front. ‘Master Buster Spot François Rabelais Jonathan Wick’ is engraved into the metal like it’s a Latin phrase, tight and beautiful. Zero strokes a thumb over the letters and grins.

He’s not quite got his own dog, yet, but he’s found a home he could raise one in, so that’s at least a first step.

-

The door has barely begun opening but John’s springing into action, knife against neck, pressing hard, threatening not just to slash but to fully behead. 

“Woah, woah woah,” the man is saying quickly, and with a calmness that gives John pause. “Easy, easy.”

John Wick blinks, sees that it’s the man with the swords who had been after him those weeks ago. The man who had been a bizarre  _ fan  _ of John’s. 

John meets the man’s eye, and the man glances towards their feet. He doesn’t seem like he’s got a weapon, so John allows himself to follow the glance… and sees his dog, stood between the man’s legs, tongue lolling out happily as he looks between them. 

John slowly removes the knife, just far enough away not to be an immediate kill, but close enough to do damage before the man could damage the dog. 

“Would you like to come in, Mister Wick?” 

John follows the man into a living room-come-kitchen, sitting opposite him on the sofas.

“What have you done with the Concierge?”

“Who, Charon?” the man asks, and John recognises the name from when Winston had referred to the Concierge as such. “Charon is my husband, we have been together for many, many years, Mister Wick!”

John doesn’t blink, allows that information to sink in. The Concierge and… this assassin? John knows absolutely nothing personal about the Concierge, knows that the Concierge keeps it that way on purpose. They are not friends, really, but it still seems like a shock that the  _ Concierge  _ was married to the man who had so recently tried to kill him. 

John supposed that in their line of work, it was likely hard to find someone to marry who was both  _ in  _ and  _ not not  _ trying to kill John Wick. 

John looks up again, about to offer some half-hearted, belated congratulations when the man begins to cackle, doubling over as he laughs, hand pressed against his chest. “You shouldn’t, Mister Wick!” he explains, “If you make me laugh so hard I’ll tear my stitches, and Charon really will be angry!”

“I hadn’t intended to…” John frowns, feeling far out of his depth. John glances around the room, notes that while the man looks familiar with the place, there are no family photos of the two of them. He is immediately on guard again, calculating whether it would be better to aim for the head, or to re-stab the hole in the man’s chest. 

“I would offer you coffee, but Charon would kill me if I touched his machine. Do you like tea, Mister Wick?”

“What have you done with the Concierge?” John repeats.

“Sadly not much as of yet, what with the chest wound. I would rather like to make him beg to be released.”

John’s muscles tense. He’ll twist the blade until this man knows what agony really means. 

The man’s face ripples and then he’s laughing again, wiping at his eyes and gasping for breath. “John! Oh, John, you really are too funny! Taking me so seriously.” The man takes a few calming breaths, stroking the dog all the while. “My name is Zero, by the way. Because you never asked.”

“It never came up.”

“Ah, because I knew your name, which was all that mattered.”

John tilts his head. Is this man really caught up on John not asking his name before killing him?

“Anyway, my darling Charon will be home soon. He’s gone to the grocery shop.”

“Grocery shop?”

“Yes, since he believes me incapable of leaving the house after I accidentally tore my stitches one time, yet he still purchases the incorrect type of rice, I have sent him out to buy the  _ right  _ kind.”

“Husband?” John says weakly, struggling to keep up.

“Not yet.”

“Make him beg to be released?” 

John watches the pleased-as-punch smile grown on Zero’s face, watches Zero watch him… and then he gets it. The image his brain provides him is swift and makes him reel like he’s been punched. 

“Why are you telling me this?” John asks, feeling so, so tired.

“Because I love Master Buster Spot François Rabelais Jonathan Wick and am sad that he obviously loves you more.” The dog perks up at the name, then Zero pats the dog’s butt and he trots over to John, slobbering all over his face. 

“You named him.”

“Master Buster Spot François Rabelais Jonathan Wick. He responds to any of the names in any order.”

“Why did you name him?”

“Why didn’t  _ you  _ name him”

_ Because I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him.  _

“That is why his name makes him bulletproof.” 

John looks up at Zero, whose expression is a strange mix of ecstatic and mournful. 

“I mean, can you imagine,” Zero says, “Standing over the corpse of the dog and shouting ‘nooo! Master Buster Spot François Rabelais Jonathan Wick! It was too soon for you to go!!’” 

John feels his face twitch, and then he’s smiling. Really, actually smiling. “No, I can’t imagine that.”

“Exactly,” Zero says, then hands a leash over to John. “He is welcome here any time, and if the Baba Yaga  _ must  _ accompany him, I suppose I wouldn’t mind making him tea too.”

As John gives  _ Master Spot Buster François Rabelais Jonathan Wick  _ his long-overdue scratches, he notices that the Concierge and the Assassin have gifted the dog a beautiful collar, sees that his fur is clean and conditioned, sees that the dog is joyously happy. It’s almost painful, that amount of joy directed towards him.

It almost seems possible that John could feel that way again. 

-

Zero touches the warm, tender scar on his chest. Even though it’s not  _ completely  _ back to normal, it’s his first day without bandages, which is a huge plus. 

He traces the messy line of brown-red scar tissue and thinks about John, feels the tingles of the battle just as vividly as the tingles of the regrowing nerves. 

“You are thinking of Mister Wick.”

“Yep.” Zero doesn’t bother turning away from the mirror, just waits until Charon is reflected behind him. Charon’s finger touches across the scar on Zero’s back, skin barely grazing Zero’s. “Jealous?”

“Of Mister Wick?”

“It was our beloved Mister Wick who left this scar on my previously un-dented chest.”

Charon looks unimpressed for a brief moment, then his fingers trail from back to Zero’s front, hand splaying over the larger scar on Zero’s chest. His blunt nails scratch against the black stitches: not painful, really, but the threat of it is palpable. 

“This is my needle, pulling Sir back together.” Zero shivers at the touch, tries to turn in Charon’s arms but is held tight.  “I will make you forget you ever loved John Wick.” 

Zero ‘huh’s. He turns around. “I don’t love John Wick.”

There’s a pause, and Charon pulls back. “You don’t?”

“No, John Wick is like…” Zero turns the thought over in his mind. “I love him like I love a dog. You know?”

Charon slowly shakes his head. 

“He’s like a hard-working puppy. I like to see him struggle, have watched him grow from ratty pup, abandoned in an alley to a true fighter. I would have him call me ‘uncle’ if I didn’t think he would bite my hand off.”

Charon lets out breath. 

“Why, do  _ you  _ love Mister Wick?” 

“No,” Charon says slowly. His attention gets caught by a sound by the door, watches as Spot trots into the room, sniffing around their feet with interest. “You love him like a dog. Yes. I can understand that.”

“Sorry, I ruined the mood. Would you like to continue trash-talking Mister Wick?” 

“No, I think I would not.”

“Beautiful. Let us take this to the bedroom and celebrate your sewing skills, him?”

Zero kisses Charon, unabashed, then marches into their bedroom, hearing Charon and Spot trailing after him. 

How nice it is to have a home. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The book in Charon’s library is Jeff Vandermeer’s Borne. 
> 
> [ TremblingShark drew art!! ](https://m.imgur.com/U8AXrzs)
> 
> [ Find me on Tumblr](bazemayonnaise.tumblr.com)


End file.
